Bad Oeynhausen,
A leaky mitral valve (mitral valve insufficiency) is one of the most common types of acquired heart valve defect, thought to affect approximately one million people in Germany alone. For a long time, the only treatment was to repair or replace the mitral valve in open-heart surgery.
"In many cases surgeons can now avoid opening up the sternum and instead replace the mitral valve via a minor incision to the right of the thorax", said Prof. Gummert, Director of the Clinic for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at the HDZ NRW.
Catheter-based valve reconstruction in high-risk patients using the so-called MitraClip technique has been tried and tested over the last few years. As the only hospital in East Westphalia-Lippe to do so at the current time, the HDZ NRW is now offering such patients catheter-based mitral valve replacement as a procedure promising significantly better quality of life, especially for elderly patients with severe concomitant diseases.
"Whenever a valve replacement becomes necessary, an HDZ NRW heart team comprising both cardiac surgeons and cardiologists decides jointly which technique is best suited to the case in question", Professor Dr. Volker Rudolph, Director of the Clinic for General and Interventional Cardiology and Angiology, explained.
Senior physicians Prof. Dr. Sabine Bleiziffer (Cardiac Surgery) and Dr. Kai Friedrichs (Interventional Cardiology) performed the first two catheter-based mitral valve replacements in the HDZ NRW hybrid OR, one in an 86-year-old female patient and the other in an 82-year-old male patient. Both tolerated the 90-minute procedure well and are expected to leave the hospital within the next week. "Open-heart surgery using the heart-lung machine would have involved far too great a risk", the cardiac specialists stressed.
The replacement valve is inserted in the heart via a small incision to the side of the thorax and then unfolded, assuming the place of the leaky mitral valve between the left atrium and the left ventricle. A special ribbon attached to the catheter keeps the valve in position. Prof. Bleiziffer and Dr. Friedrichs stated: "A huge benefit of this new technique is being able to eliminate the heart-lung machine."
Transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TendyneTM, manufactured by Abbott) was released for clinical use in Europe at the beginning of this year. According to the manufacturer, it is the first treatment option of its kind, facilitating mitral valve replacement in patients unable to undergo an open-heart intervention and unsuitable for transcatheter mitral valve repair, thus improving their symptoms and their quality of life.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, just three hospitals are currently offering this procedure. As one of the largest heart valve centers in Germany, with 2,000 conventional and catheter-based heart valve interventions in patients of all ages, the Herz- und Diabeteszentrum NRW (HDZ NRW) in Bad Oeynhausen offers all approved treatments for heart valve diseases.
Professor Rudolph described impaired valve function as follows: "When a heart valve fails to close correctly due to disease, degeneration or a birth defect, the heart is required to exert more force to pump the leaking blood through the body. The consequences are fatigue, shortness of breath and poor cardiac function. Medication is unable to eliminate the root cause of the problem. This is why we usually recommend a valve reconstruction or replacement, always preceded by an individual consultation with an experienced cardiac team. The agreed procedure must take into account the type and severity of the leak, and should only be performed at a certified heart valve center."
Further Information:
Herz- und Diabeteszentrum Nordrhein-Westfalen
Universitätsklinik der Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit
Leitung: Anna Reiss
Georgstr. 11
32545 Bad Oeynhausen
Tel. 05731 97-1955
Fax 05731 97-2028
E-Mail: info@hdz-nrw.de
